Trumps baffling response to whether Xi meeting is | Political News

President Donald Trump on Friday said “there seems to be no reason” to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his upcoming journey to South Korea, following China’s latest restriction of important uncommon earth exports to America.

Trump fielded questions from reporters as half of an afternoon announcement in the White House, during which one requested about his deliberate rendezvous with Jinping. “No, I haven’t cancelled it,” Trump replied. “I don’t know if we’re going to have it but I’m going to be there so we might have it.”

His assertion got here as he announced an extra “massive” 100% tax on Chinese imports in November or sooner, an escalation of tariff charges almost matching ranges in April that stoked fears of a global recession. While Trump appeared to categorical conviction in his retort to China’s transfer, he is famously identified for backing down from threats.

“One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America,” he posted on Truth Social. “There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration.”

The announcement got here after financial markets closed on Friday and risked throwing the global financial system into turmoil. Not only might the global commerce battle instigated by Trump be rekindled, but import taxes being heaped on top of the 30% already being levied on Chinese items might, by the administration’s past statements, trigger commerce to break down between the U.S. and China in methods that might trigger growth worldwide to droop, according to The Associated Press.

The prospect of tariffs this large might compound the president’s own political worries inside the U.S., probably pushing up inflation at a second when the job market seems fragile and the drags from a authorities shutdown are beginning to compound into layoffs of federal staff.

The president also said that the U.S. authorities would reply to China by placing its own export controls “on any and all critical software” from American companies.

The United States and China have been jostling for benefit in commerce talks, after the import taxes announced earlier this yr triggered a commerce battle between the world’s two largest economies. Both nations agreed to ratchet down tariffs after negotiations in Switzerland and the United Kingdom, yet tensions stay as China has continued to limit America’s access to the difficult-to-mine uncommon earths needed for a big selection of U.S. applied sciences.

Trump didn’t formally cancel the meeting with Xi, so a lot as indicating that it may not occur as half of a journey at the end of the month in Asia. The journey was scheduled to embody a stop in Malaysia, which is internet hosting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit; a stop in Japan; and a go to to South Korea, where he was slated to meet with Xi forward of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

“I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” Trump posted.

The announcement got here just hours after Trump had what he has described as a “semiannual physical” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described it as a “routine yearly checkup,” although Trump had his annual bodily in April.

Trump left the White House around 10:45 a.m. on Friday and returned to the grounds at 2:15 p.m., which was barely forward of schedule. He didn’t reply questions from reporters upon his arrival, and the White House has not indicated when it might release outcomes or more data about his exams.

The White House declined to clarify why Trump was getting a yearly checkup at Walter Reed, which is in Bethesda, Maryland, six months after his annual examination. In an exchange with reporters on Thursday, the Republican president said it was a “semiannual physical.”